Daryl Hall
If you are a superstar, or whatever you want to call yourself, a person who's had outrageous success, and you decide to go indie and tell the record companies to screw themselves? That takes a certain amount of courage. And bullheadedness, really.Collection: Courage
Yes, I travel in unusual circles. George Osborne and his wife Frances are my cousins.Collection: Travel
I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.Collection: Teacher
I love antique architecture, so if I have any indulgences, I have owned and renovated and reconstructed a lot of old houses.Collection: Architecture
The late 20th century had just enough communication abilities to allow superstar-ness and communality to happen. It was a musical renaissance that rivals the visual one that happened in the 1400s.Collection: Communication
Success and failure are equally surprising.Collection: Failure
I've got a sense of humor. I'm a funny guy.Collection: Humor
I'm just about the best singer I know, and it's time for everybody to say that. I have total facility with my voice. And for some weird reason, critics don't talk about it.
If Paul McCartney tells me that so-and-so song is his favorite song, what do I care? What do I care what anybody else says?
If you work hard and you're good, you can build something for yourself.
I have gone from one relationship to a marriage and stepchildren.
All artists have insecurity.
When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.
You don't have to be a good musician if you've got certain computer skills.
Obscurity is just obscurity. There's no romance in obscurity.
I returned to upstate NY where I just laid in bed for days with a fever that just wouldn't go away. After more of this, I grew increasingly sure that this was not simply the flu!
Art is a continuum.
Reject what you don't want. Get rid of dead wood.
Nobody really cares about what other people think anymore; they're all about themselves.
Most artists try to avoid cliches, but it's pretty hard to avoid them if you yourself end up being one.
If you can sing, you never lose your voice. If you don't know how to sing, your voice goes away because you sing from your throat.
I have to say I have never been comfortable with somebody else telling me what to do - in any way.
If you take a bunch of superstars and put them in a room where they don't have their assistants and entourage, it's funny to see what happens.
This illness made it impossible for me to give my best effort to our audience, but now that it's been identified, I'm looking forward to a complete, quick recovery and to get back out there with John as soon as possible.
Chronic Lyme causes arthritis, heart problems, stroke - even death.
Smokey Robinson is one of my heroes as a singer and songwriter; a major influence on my own music from the very start.
Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters.
Traditionally, duos get accused of lots of things.
I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood.
I have an English family and I've lived in England for years.
I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.
The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.'
I was a pioneer in MTV and I was there from the very beginning. So I saw how that developed and how loose it was and how much fun it was in its looseness. And I was influenced a lot by that.
I was just like a 21st century person waiting to be born, and this is the medium that I thrive in. And I feel stronger now than I did any time since I've been a teenager - I mean, musically, creatively.
Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.
I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I'm not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it's cool.
I'm in the trenches; I do the best work I can always do. Having said that, the way that what I do converges with the outside world is fascinating to me. Because it ebbs and flows. People's interest and understanding, it changes all the time.
Being at college, I think that's the time when you really start searching for things outside yourself.
The first thing I ever did was play talent shows at the Uptown Theater and the Adelphi Ballroom.
In the early '70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it.
You don't have to be a good singer any more if you can rap well.
I'm not a big fan of any video, especially my own. In a word, I hated the Hall & Oates videos.
Nixon was the beginning of people not trusting politics.
I don't really strain my voice.
The 'Daryl's House' thing has made me into a live musician even more than I ever was, and even in the way I record.
I've been watching RFD-TV for a few years. As a person who lives mostly in the country, I appreciate a network that shows the many facets of rural life.
Who knows what the right time to get married is?
I'm used to the egos in the 1960s, '70s and '80s where people just expected massive success and thought it was their birth right to be successful.
I never felt entitled to anything. I'm the hardest worker I know.
I was always an introvert as a kid. Then, when I first kind of came out as a human being, I used to be one of those guys who'd go nuts on the dance floor, and people would gather around.